along."

Keith took counsel with no one else, not even with Melvyna, but
presently he wrote his letter and carried it himself over to the
village to mail. He did good deeds like that once in a while, "to help
humanity," he said; they were tangible always, like the primary rocks.

At length one evening the fog rolled out to sea for good and all, at
least as far as the shore was concerned. In the morning there stood the
light-house, and the island, and the reef, just the same as ever.
Someway they had almost expected to see them altered or melted a
little.

"Let us go over to the reef, all of us, and spend the day," said Keith.
"It will do us good to breathe the clear air, and feel the brilliant,
dry, hot sunshine again."

"Hear the man!" said Melvyna laughing. "After trying to persuade us all
those days that he liked that sticky fog too!"

"Mme. Gonsalvez, we like a lily; but is that any reason why we may not
also like a rose?"

"Neither of 'em grows on this beach as I'm aware of," answered Melvyna
dryly.

Then Carrington put in his voice, and carried the day. Women never
resisted Carrington long, but yielded almost unconsciously to the
influence of his height, and his strength, and his strong, hearty will.
A subtler influence over them, however, would have waked resistance,
and Carrington himself would have been conquered far sooner (and was
conquered later) by one who remained unswayed by those mere outer
influences, to which the crowd of fair ones, however, paid involuntary
obeisance.

Pedro had gone to the village for his supplies and his two days of mild
Minorcan dissipation, and Melvyna, beguiled and cajoled by the chaffing
of the two young men, at last consented, and not only packed the
lunch-basket with careful hand, but even donned for the occasion her
"best bonnet," a structure trimmed in Vermont seven years before by the
experienced hand of Miss Althy Spears, the village milliner, who had
adorned it with a durable green ribbon and a vigorous wreath of
artificial flowers. Thus helmeted, Mme. Gonsalvez presided at the stern
of the boat with great dignity. For they were in the safe
well-appointed little yacht belonging to the two gentlemen, the daring
paroquet having been left at home tied to the last of a low heap of
rocks that jutted out into the water in front of the light-house, the
only remains of the old stone dock built by the Spaniards long before.
Sister St. Luke was with them of course, gent